


Babble

by komiv



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Language Headcanons, space!linguistics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komiv/pseuds/komiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Garrison forces recover the lost pilot Takashi Shirogane from his crashed ship, no one can understand a word he’s saying.</p>
<p>OR, What Happens When The Aliens Don't Speak English.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babble

When Garrison forces recover the lost pilot Takashi Shirogane from his crashed ship, no one can understand a word he’s saying. Not at first. _Gibberish_ , mutters more than one of the attending techs. _He’s lost it._ Shirogane was missing for over a year, after all. Presumed dead since the Kerberos disaster. Any number of things could have happened during that time, especially given the foreign craft they found him in.

“Someone find a linguistics expert,” the Garrison medic snaps over her shoulder as she tries to leverage the struggling pilot back onto the gurney. “And get a line to Iverson—Shirogane, you’re going to hurt yourself. Calm down or we’ll be forced to sedate you.”

Even when they do get him speaking something recognizable—a stumbling, peppered mix of Japanese and English—most of the important parts still don’t make much more sense than before.

( _The Galra are coming.)_

                                                                     ( _They’re looking for Voltron.)_

_(You can’t let them find it.)_

_(Please.)_

_\--_

By the time they reach Arus—five of them, strangers crammed into the Blue Lion’s cockpit on a crash course for anywhere-but-Earth—Shiro’s almost gotten his head back together. Kind of. His thoughts are still a jumble of Galran, Japanese, and English, but what comes out makes enough sense for the others to understand.

It feels like he hasn’t stopped running since he-can’t-remember-when. Keith keeps sending him concerned looks when the guy thinks he’s not looking, as does the kid who looks far too much like Matt Holt for comfort.

Pidge, he reminds himself, because names are Important. The other two are Lance and Hunk, and as the Lion rockets into the wormhole Shiro has no earthly idea how they’re going to get out of this alive.

He’ll rest when they’re all safe, he promises himself silently.

He’s not sure if that will ever actually happen.

_(The Galra are coming.)_

_\--_

Following the psychically imparted advice of a robotic lion seems like a good idea when it’s getting them away from a Galra battleship, but when they step into the castle’s central chamber he wonders if they didn’t just vault headfirst into another kind of fire. There’s a presence in the castle, a power in the walls and floors he can feel resonating in his right arm. Something watching them. Watching him.

He’s almost not even surprised when the stasis pods pop up from the floor, because of course there would be. The alien who stumbles out of the first one—female, maybe, though he probably shouldn’t assume—stares at them for several seconds in something like mutual shock before dropping into what could only be a combat stance. Then she snaps a demand in a language he doesn’t recognize.

The others don’t seem to have any more of a clue than him what she’s actually saying beyond what her tone and expression implies—they’re all still cadets, more or less, and Shiro doubts if they’ve ever even left Earth—although that doesn’t stop Lance from sidling over to try anyway. He gets taken down on the spot, and the alien holds Lance in an arm lock as she snaps something else, a high-stressed hitch audible in her voice.

_She’s afraid_ , Shiro realizes. Recognizes the frantic tension in her shoulders, the wide-intent stare. The way she shifts to keep the four of them in her periphery as she scans the rest of the room.

Hunk attempts to talk her down with cautious, careful words that don’t seem to help much—except her death grip on Lance’s arm eases just a little, and then she peers at them.

She speaks again, this time almost hesitantly. The words have a different intonation than before, like the rhythm of a different language. He glances at the others, but unsurprisingly none of them appear to recognize that one, either. When they don’t respond she tries another, but the staccato syllables are equally unfamiliar.

Frustration twists her expression and she purses his lips as she considers them. Then, in what seems to almost be a last resort, she snaps out _“Well, what_ are _you, then?”_ in a complicated form of Galran just familiar enough to make Shiro freeze for just a second too long.

She zeroes in on his reaction, eyes narrowing at him as she shoves Lance away from her. “ _You are not Galran.”_ Enunciated syllables, elongated pronunciation like gravel whispers in his memories that he can’t quite name or put to a face.

Now isn’t the time to get lost in his head. He meets her eyes and nods slowly, stepping forward to put the other four behind him as Lance scrambles back over. _“No,”_ he responds in kind, words he doesn’t remember learning but somehow knows as implicitly as he knows that the Galra are coming for them. His accent is rougher than hers, but he can see the flicker of recognition in her face. _“We’re not.”_

_\--_

It gets easier, as time goes on. The Alteans have a translator technology that works a lot like most of their tech—namely, it’s based in enough science for Pidge to fiddle with it without making anything explode, but it’s magic enough that Hunk gets that perturbed look whenever he tries to understand how it Actually Works. All Shiro knows it that it lets the rest of the paladins communicate with Allura and Coran without him needing to play translator, which comes in handy the time when Sendak captures him and Lance and almost steals the entire castle out from under their noses.

Still, there are times when even Altean technology fails and miscommunication ensues. They end up laughing about it, most of the time. Allura asks him to actually teach her English after the second time it happens, and she picks up the language more quickly than he might have expected.

Another Altean thing, he supposes. Or a princess thing. Or maybe just an Allura thing, honestly, because Coran sits in on their lessons sometimes and doesn’t seem to have nearly as easy a time with it as the princess.

Shiro doesn’t mind, either way. Allura is…good company. And it gives him something to occupy his time with when they’re stuck waiting for the castle to recharge for another wormhole jump.

He teaches the paladins some Galran too, once his mind settles enough to parse through the language without triggering sudden flashbacks. It’s hard to get them all to sit still for very long regardless, but the universe is a big place and Galran is already the language of everything except resistance. Even with the Altean translators, they’ll probably end up needing it before this war is done and Shiro refuses to let his team go into this fight anything less than prepared.

There is no resistance in the Galra Empire, or so Zarkon would have the universe believe. Princess Allura and the Voltron Paladins intend to differ.

Loudly.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I loved the series but Aliens Randomly Speaking English kind of bugs me when there's no attempt at explaining it at all. So...language headcanons.
> 
> Allura and Coran both speak an old, high-form of Galran, because being able to communicate with a neighboring people (even or especially one the Alteans ended up at war with) would be Very Important for high ranking persons to study, especially a princess and a royal advisor. What they speak is obviously antiquated due to the passage of years but given the implications of Long Lived Aliens it's probably safe to assume it's still recognizable as similar to what Zarkon, Haggar, and other high-ranking members of the Galra Empire would probably speak. (Allura also undoubtedly speaks several other languages contemporary to the social-political landscape of her birth, because again: educated princess of a highly diplomatic culture.)
> 
> In contrast, Shiro speaks a very rough form of Galran picked up from his time as a prisoner both from guards, other prisoners, etc. It's much more colloquial, a mix of swearing, slang, relevant terms, and surviving bits from other cultures that the Galra Empire has encountered/assimilated over the 10,000 years since Voltron disappeared. He's been immersed in the language for at least a year, but his vocabulary is made up mostly of what would have been necessary for survival rather than any kind of formal study. 
> 
> Shiro and the Alteans can understand each other, but there's probably more than a bit of guesswork involved on top of navigating the assumed connotations both sides would be bringing to the table. On that note, however, I find it highly likely that a chameleon people like the Alteans, who have been shown to have Extremely Advanced Magic-Science technology in their ships and creations (the Lions), would have developed some form of translator technology to enable people to communicate without needing to learn an entire new language.* Actually learning the languages and not needing the technology would probably be a sign of Educated Status--not to mention, even Magic-Science Technology has problems sometimes--but the technology to work around it would probably be kept available anyway. 
> 
> *Wearable translator technology is already available in some forms on Earth today, and we're nowhere near Extremely Advanced Magic-Science levels of innovation. Soon, maybe???? I can dream.
> 
> So...yeah. This is mostly just incomplete speculation on my part, so if anyone has any thoughts/comments/corrections on the subject I'd love to hear them! Might write some more in this vein, maybe exploring some of the episodes in more detail, but here's this for now anyway.


End file.
